Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia by Sam Dalrymple is a sweeping, deeply researched history of how the Indian Empire — once stretching from the Red Sea to the jungles of Southeast Asia — fractured into the modern nations we know today. As recently as 1928, this vast dominion united the lands and peoples of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal, Bhutan, and the Arabian Peninsula under a single imperial banner. Within fifty years, five partitions had torn it apart, reshaping borders, identities, and destinies.
 
Drawing on archival sources, untranslated memoirs, and multilingual interviews, Dalrymple reconstructs this dramatic unmaking — a story of ambition and betrayal, of revolutions and forgotten wars, of maps redrawn by rulers, rebels, and empires. His narrative connects the violent legacies of partition — from Kashmir and Baluchistan to the Rohingya crisis — to the geopolitical realities of today.
 
Vivid and panoramic, Shattered Lands is both a groundbreaking work of historical synthesis and a compelling human story of how Asia was remade in the fires of empire’s end.